Take the car, take the cash

In the mid-90's, there was an English band called Gene. A lot of you knew them, some of you liked them, some of you know them very well, some not at all. I was always a little amazed by them because they overcame great odds to create some amazing music. The odds they overcame were not like the crash victim who one day walks again, but the odds that the annoying, pretentious guy ends up being a really good friend when you need one.

And they were annoying and pretentious. There was outrageous guitar wankery, ham-fisted drumming, forced arrangements and the singer embodied all of the bad parts of Morrissey without any of the good parts. But through all of these things, they just found those moments. Songs like "We Could Be Kings" (listen) were mostly mediocre until they suddenly, inexplicably erupted into glorious, beautiful, powerful melodies and then just as suddenly sunk back to bland.

Listening to the new Voxtrot album today, I realized that these guys are the new Gene. A lot of stuff on the new album is pretty hard to take: corny life observations, self-pity, precious attempts at prettiness, obvious arrangements, uninspired, sloppy playing, but yet they do exactly what Gene did: overcome all of those things to create some chillingly great music.

I've listened to "Brother In Conflict" (listen) about 20 times in the last couple of days, but you wouldn't know it from the play count in my iTunes, because I only play one bit of the song over and over. At the 2:59 mark, they throw in a couple of melodic twists that are a thrill to listen to. When they hit the "I have teeth" line, it loses me, and I rewind it again, never quite getting to the end of the song. But those thirty seconds blow away just about any thirty songs by almost anyone.